The struggles and screams of the child he was trying to save served to confuse Seth, and the smoke, which was growing more stifling each moment, bewildered at the same time that it choked him.
But for the lectures the boy had heard at headquarters, neither he nor the baby would have left the apartment alive.
He realized the vital necessity of keeping a "grip on himself," as Josh Fernald had expressed it, and, in order the better to do so, repeated again and again the words of the instructor.
During the first dozen seconds he tried to soothe the child, and then came the thought that the little one would suffocate more quickly by inhaling the smoke-laden atmosphere as she gasped and sobbed violently.
A garment—perhaps it was a table-cloth or a light blanket—hung over the back of a chair near at hand, and this Seth wound around the baby's face, regardless of its struggles.
"A clear head is the next best thing to a ladder," he said again and again, repeating the words of Mr. Fernald, and all the while searching for a rope, or something which would serve him in its stead.
By this time the room was completely filled with smoke, and his eyes were blinded, smarting, burning.
Near the window was a footstool, and seizing this with one hand he hurled it through the glass.
Fresh air was a necessity now; he must have it, or speedily succumb to the deadly vapor.
Holding the child, who was apparently in a paroxysm of fear, or a spasm caused by pain, close against his breast, he thrust the upper portion of his body through the aperture regardless of the sharp fragments of glass which cut his flesh cruelly.